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When my wife worked for the Forest Service, among the many people she met was a girl close to her age. Since girls who jumped out of helicopters to fight fires were something of a rarity, they got rather close. Mary is nice, friendly and somewhat large, in the manner of girls born and raised in Montana. My wife liked her, and was shocked one day when someone saw her talking to the girl and later said, I see youve met Big Hole Mary.
Now, Rita has always traveled in ready-to-go circles and has never been a stranger to shock humor or nicknames, but she was still taken aback. I couldnt understand why people would have such a mean, personal nickname for her, and I thought about talking to her and asking if she knew, Rita recalled .
This came up because Big Hole Mary had gotten married. We missed the wedding, but after the ceremony she had apparently taken her newly betrothed around to meet the locals, or whatever locals were hanging out, so she had, in effect, taken her new husband to meet the guys who had given her the nickname Big Hole Mary.
It was kind of weird," said a friend of ours who was there, the guy didnt look real thrilled about it, and all us dogs sniffed at him for a minute, and could tell he didnt think much of her friends, so no one cut him any slack.
We realized as we thought about it that most people, including very probably, the new husband, dont know many people with nicknames. Binky and Bunny dont count.
Nicknames, like tattoos, used to be mostly associated with bikers and felons. In the cultural anthropology of the genre, they have been used to distinguish, impugn or just confuse, and the great nicknames carry with them an element of dark, insider humor. Oddly, as we considered it, nearly everyone we know has a nickname, or several.
Sometimes, theyre obvious. Chicken Neck, for instance, or Dog man. Sometimes, to be truthful, they are more alias than nickname. On our friend Virgils birth certificate it says something else, but for business reasons years agi he wanted a moniker that sounded as hillbilly as possible. It was just happenstance that he is also a Virgo. A well known local artist who paints largely native American themes used Charles bear as his nom de plume what a poser! I first met Charles in the company of a singer/musician named Norton Buffalo, and neither of them seemed to think their pairing was as humorous as I did.
In some dojo, particularly in the New York area, its the practice for some people to have rather ridiculous budo names stitched on their dogi, like Rubberband man, "Hammerfist," or well, you get the idea .I once had such a nickname for my rather long legs, though I didn't have it embroidered on my gi.....
Its also not uncommon for people to get nicknames from co-workers. Ive found that cops usually call each other little-boy shortened versions of their names, Bobby, Billy, Eddie, and Robby come to mind immediately. When I was working on er device disassembly, people called me Fearless, and Ice, because of my apparent cool..I quickly disabused them of that notion by commenting that Fearless was a lot more like ****less. That name stuck, dammit.
That handle up there in the corner of this post is a longstanding joke. I participate in Native American ceremonies, and a gentleman who passed away just last year made the comment that I was some sort of junior elder. I replied that I had about 1,000 years to go before I was worthy of being called an elder, so Ive got 999 (now, more like 990, now)to go ..
The best nicknames are the ones that cause you to stop and think for a while., The ones that require you to know someone well enough to fully get the joke. A guy named Ron, whom we all called Wahoo, moved to Alaska and returned married to a rather large Inuit woman who called him Blaze-O. Thats my name up there, he grinned. Why? we asked, wondering if they thought he was hot in bed, quick to anger or what. Because when I got married my buddies didnt think it was right that I was six inches shorter than my bride, so they had me stand on a case of firestarter called Blaze-O.
Which brings us back to Big Hole Mary, who came to town and got married and all the guys said she looked good and seemed real happy. Then she and her husband moved back to the part of Montana where she was from. A few weeks after meeting her, my wife asked her where that was, and Mary said just outside of a town called Wisdom.
Wheres that? Rita had asked.
Over in the Big Hole Valley. came the reply.
What's your nickname, and how'd ya get it?
Now, Rita has always traveled in ready-to-go circles and has never been a stranger to shock humor or nicknames, but she was still taken aback. I couldnt understand why people would have such a mean, personal nickname for her, and I thought about talking to her and asking if she knew, Rita recalled .
This came up because Big Hole Mary had gotten married. We missed the wedding, but after the ceremony she had apparently taken her newly betrothed around to meet the locals, or whatever locals were hanging out, so she had, in effect, taken her new husband to meet the guys who had given her the nickname Big Hole Mary.
It was kind of weird," said a friend of ours who was there, the guy didnt look real thrilled about it, and all us dogs sniffed at him for a minute, and could tell he didnt think much of her friends, so no one cut him any slack.
We realized as we thought about it that most people, including very probably, the new husband, dont know many people with nicknames. Binky and Bunny dont count.
Nicknames, like tattoos, used to be mostly associated with bikers and felons. In the cultural anthropology of the genre, they have been used to distinguish, impugn or just confuse, and the great nicknames carry with them an element of dark, insider humor. Oddly, as we considered it, nearly everyone we know has a nickname, or several.
Sometimes, theyre obvious. Chicken Neck, for instance, or Dog man. Sometimes, to be truthful, they are more alias than nickname. On our friend Virgils birth certificate it says something else, but for business reasons years agi he wanted a moniker that sounded as hillbilly as possible. It was just happenstance that he is also a Virgo. A well known local artist who paints largely native American themes used Charles bear as his nom de plume what a poser! I first met Charles in the company of a singer/musician named Norton Buffalo, and neither of them seemed to think their pairing was as humorous as I did.
In some dojo, particularly in the New York area, its the practice for some people to have rather ridiculous budo names stitched on their dogi, like Rubberband man, "Hammerfist," or well, you get the idea .I once had such a nickname for my rather long legs, though I didn't have it embroidered on my gi.....
Its also not uncommon for people to get nicknames from co-workers. Ive found that cops usually call each other little-boy shortened versions of their names, Bobby, Billy, Eddie, and Robby come to mind immediately. When I was working on er device disassembly, people called me Fearless, and Ice, because of my apparent cool..I quickly disabused them of that notion by commenting that Fearless was a lot more like ****less. That name stuck, dammit.
That handle up there in the corner of this post is a longstanding joke. I participate in Native American ceremonies, and a gentleman who passed away just last year made the comment that I was some sort of junior elder. I replied that I had about 1,000 years to go before I was worthy of being called an elder, so Ive got 999 (now, more like 990, now)to go ..
The best nicknames are the ones that cause you to stop and think for a while., The ones that require you to know someone well enough to fully get the joke. A guy named Ron, whom we all called Wahoo, moved to Alaska and returned married to a rather large Inuit woman who called him Blaze-O. Thats my name up there, he grinned. Why? we asked, wondering if they thought he was hot in bed, quick to anger or what. Because when I got married my buddies didnt think it was right that I was six inches shorter than my bride, so they had me stand on a case of firestarter called Blaze-O.
Which brings us back to Big Hole Mary, who came to town and got married and all the guys said she looked good and seemed real happy. Then she and her husband moved back to the part of Montana where she was from. A few weeks after meeting her, my wife asked her where that was, and Mary said just outside of a town called Wisdom.
Wheres that? Rita had asked.
Over in the Big Hole Valley. came the reply.
What's your nickname, and how'd ya get it?
